


And Still of a Winter's Night

by Sholio



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Case Fic, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8823322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: When a young woman turns up dead during Carnival, Shaw needs Ben's help with the investigation -- or, rather, Dominique's.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadlikeknives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/gifts).



> This is for an absolutely BRILLIANT prompt by my recipient, which is at the end of the fic for spoiler reasons. As soon as I saw it, I couldn't possibly NOT write it.
> 
> As far as the timeline is concerned, this fic takes place somewhere between _The Shirt on His Back_ and _Drinking Gourd_.

In the blue dusk of a winter evening, when the street beneath the gallery of the house on Rue Esplanade seethed with color and noise in the madness of Carnival season, Shaw came to January's door to ask a favor.

"Ain't the usual sort of help I need this time, Maestro," Shaw told him. Rose had brought out coffee to the gallery, then retired inside where she was putting down Baby John for the night. Through the open French doors, over the music and the shouting up and down the street, January could hear her crooning a lullaby. "It's your sister, in fact, that I'm needin' to speak to."

"Olympe?" January said in surprise. He didn't want to imagine what business Shaw had with a voodooienne.

"No, t'other one. Miss Janvier."

Dominique. Fear stirred in his heart. "She's not in trouble." It was both a statement and a question.

Shaw shook his head. "Not a speck. Still, this ain't the sort of business a man can take up to her front door -- or back door, as the case might be. I need to talk to her discreet-like. If'n it wouldn't trouble you none, I'd like for you to set up a meetin', or at least carry her a message."

In the normal course of an investigation, the policeman wouldn't have hesitated to come by Dominique's house to ask her questions if he needed to. He'd done it in the past. Which meant this business was -- personal? "What's this about?" January asked warily.

"You know Emile Bajolière?"

"A little. I know of him, at least. I'm not sure if we've met in person." The Bajolières were a Creole family of sugar planters, various members of whom showed up in town for the social season and tended to vanish back to their plantations afterwards, and that was all January knew. Either Dominique or his mother could have given a full reckoning of the family's history and would be personally acquainted with every placée who had dealings with them, he was sure.

"Family's in cane mostly. Owns a few places both up an' down the river, most notable one bein' Le Printemps Doux down Plaquemines way. They's all in town for Carnival, now the harvestin's done." Shaw leaned on the wall, a long shadow in the half-light streaming out from inside. "Goin' on some four days ago now, a gal name of Long Martha turned up drownded in the canal. She was 'in the game,' like they say. White gal. Good lookin', or so they tell me down in the Swamp; hard to judge them things once they goes in the water. Now," he went on mildly, looking down on the street, "it ain't a rare story 'round Carnival time. Folks gets drunk an' falls in. Guard fishes out a few every year."

"But you think she had help."

Shaw touched his long fingers to his throat, stroking them suggestively to indicate a girdling ring. "Gal been dead for less'n a day when she washed up, an' the bruises was plain as day. I figure they done throwed her in, thinkin' the crayfish'd do away with the evidence, but the currents are mighty hard to guess at."

"What's her connection with the Bajolières?"

"Seems word around the Swamp was she done been anglin' to land herself a rich beau willin' to set her up as his mistress. Wearin' new fripperies an' flauntin' em around the place. Nobody seems to know who she had on the hook, but they got plenty o' guesses, an' the Bajolière name keeps comin' up. Emile Bajolière an' his two sons has all been in town jus' about the right amount of time to fit."

"It's circumstantial," January said.

"Can't argue, but what makes me think there's some truth to it is how the whole family done closed up tighter'n a miser's pocketbook right after the gal's death hit the papers. Ain't talkin' to nobody, ain't entertainin', sure ain't lettin' the police in the house. An' you an' me both knows that folks what won't be sociable at Carnival is folks with somethin' to hide. Think I might even know what that could be." Shaw curled his long fingers suggestively. "Gal got in some good gouges on her attacker. Even had some hair in her fist. Couldn't tell what color it was, not after that long in the water, but she done marked him good."

Rose might have been able to tell, with her microscope. But with the murder four days gone, January knew the girl would have been buried, any evidence on her body lost. There was no use in asking.

At least now he could guess where this was going, and where Dominique fit in. "Do Emile or his sons have a contract with a placée?"

Shaw's slight tug of a smile let him know he'd hit the mark. "The older boy, Pierre-Michel, has a gal name of Sidonie Fontaine. Know her?"

"Not personally, no." But Dominique certainly would. And if there was gossip about Emile Bajolière or either of his sons having dealings with a disreputable woman, she would probably be able to get it. There were places Dominique could go that he could not, people who would talk to her who wouldn't give the time of day to Shaw. 

As Shaw knew, of course, and January felt a surge of irritation at having his family dragged once again into business that didn't concern them.

"I have to tell you, though," January went on. "I don't like the idea of my sister involved with a murder investigation." 

"This Martha, she couldn'ta been more'n seventeen," Shaw said, his scratchy voice soft. "An' after Carnival, them folks ain't gonna stay in town, an' anythin' they's hidin' is leavin' with 'em, back to Plaquemines or wherever."

There were not many men in the City Guard, January knew, who would have pursued the death of a prostitute as assiduously as if she'd been the daughter of a wealthy planter, even if she was white. Shaw was one of the few.

But January also knew that the main reason why Shaw had been allowed to get away with it so far was because the Bajolières were not particularly well connected in the higher levels of the city's society. Otherwise it was likely that Captain Tremouille of the Guard would have reassigned Shaw elsewhere, the girl's death pinned on some client of hers in the Swamp, and the matter dropped. And just because it had been relatively above-board so far didn't mean the investigation might not lead into deeper and more dangerous political waters, depending what was unearthed. 

Even aside from the matter of murder, it was a scandal for the family -- would have been in any case, whether the girl was dead or not. Men had mistresses, it was accepted and even bordered on the respectable in its way, but men from wealthy Creole families did not make mistresses of young women from the Swamp. And men with something to hide were men willing to kill to keep it hidden.

Getting involved in white men's business -- a white killer, a white victim -- was like tweaking a tiger's tail: all the best intentions in the world couldn't save you if the beast decided to turn around and bite.

But the girl had been seventeen.

Alone in the world, with no one willing to speak up for her. No one but Shaw.

"I'll talk to Dominique about it," January said reluctantly. "It'll be up to her whether she can do anything to help. And whether she wants to."

Shaw touched his hat. "That's all I'm askin.'"

 

***

 

"Oh, but everyone knows about Sidonie and Pierre-Michel, p'tit," Dominique said when January went to see her at the pretty little cottage on Rue Dumaine. She said it through a mouthful of pins; she was sewing her costume for the upcoming Blue Ribbon Ball, three days hence. Dominique and several of her friends were attending as a flock of butterflies. Beyond the open door to the nursery, Charmian's nurse could be heard patiently trying to coax the child into a clean, dry dress to replace one that had been soiled in the mud of the backyard; this charming domestic scene (Charmian on the escape, her nurse and Dominique's cook trying to corral her) had just been breaking up when January had arrived. "Do you see any of the pink Venetian lace in that basket? I know I had half a yard just yesterday --"

"Everyone might know, but _I_ don't," January pointed out, dutifully rummaging in the basket. Memories of Ayasha no longer rose up to bite him as he hunted through Dominique's sewing things; it was merely a sting, these days. "What happened?"

"Oh, well, he broke her contract, cher. Though it was hardly a tremendous shock. Sidonie hasn't exactly been sitting in her parlor weeping and sewing samplers during the ten months of the year M'sieu Bajolière is out of town. Everyone _knows_ about her and the cook Clement at the Hôtel Trouard; it's not as if they were discreet, especially after that row with Clement's wife Douzaine -- she was throwing crockery in the street! I wasn't there, but Marie-Niège Pellicot saw the whole thing. In any case," she said, biting off a thread, "the silly hussy was playing with fire, and it was only a matter of time until the Bajolières found out about it. See, I _told_ her she ought to tell her mama that she didn't like the match, but Amèlie Fontaine won't take advice, she never has, and Sidonie is just as bad. Really, whatever Clement's charms, and believe me, I've heard about them at length, I can't imagine why she didn't even stop to _think._ Not that she hasn't been hard done by, in the end. Pierre-Michel even took the house back, though it was mortgaged to the hilt anyway --"

"Where's Sidonie now?" January interrupted the flow of gossip to ask. He wondered if he ought to ask Shaw to keep an eye on her; if Pierre-Michel or his brother was the murderer, he wouldn't want to be in the shoes of a woman who had cheated on him.

"She's had to move back in with her mother, which, having met Amèlie, _I_ would consider a fate far worse than putting up with Pierre-Michel's appalling table manners and that awful father of his; it's not as if they were even in town most of the time. I happen to know she still has two caned chairs and a very nice set of dishes at the house, which she'd best move out soon unless she wants her replacement to claim them as spoils --"

"He's negotiated another contract already?" Finally locating the ball of lace, January handed it to her.

Dominique had moved on to work on the costume's delicate wings; she set the lace absently aside. "Why, both of them, darling. It's not finalized yet, but that Emile Bajolière has been talking to Trinette Gresseau about her daughters. Martine's not even out yet, but he says he's willing to wait, and you _know_ it's hard to get a placement these days. I shouldn't think Trinette would agree under other circumstances, but as it is, she's been sporting a new fur stole about town and looking very pleased with herself."

"That seems hasty, if he just broke the other contract."

"One can't be choosy in these times, Ben," Dominique chided. "I expect Bajolière Père wants to conclude the negotiations while the family is still in town, which one can hardly blame them for. It's so _tedious_ doing business by post. Really, until the entire arrangement went up in flames through her lack of discretion, I know plenty of people who were quite envious of Sidonie, having her protector out of town most of the year. I wouldn't like it myself, of course; I'd miss Henri too much ..."

"Do you think you can introduce me to Sidonie?" January asked, wedging the request into a brief lull in the conversation as Dominique paused to bite off another thread.

"Why have you taken such an interest in Sidonie Fontaine all of a sudden?" his sister asked, reminding January that while Dominique might sometimes act frivolous, she was very far from stupid.

"It's possible her protector -- former protector, I mean -- killed a woman who was found in the canal a few days ago. The police think so." Dominique didn't protest, so January prompted, "What do you think?"

"I think ..." She pursed her lips. "I think I could believe it of him. I only ever met him once or twice, but he was very ill-mannered. Hardly better than an American. And there was always something about him that I never quite trusted. He was the sort of man who makes one want to lock up the cashbox, you know what I mean?"

"I think I do." Or lock up one's daughters. "What about that introduction?"

Dominique stabbed her needle through a fold of the skirt's lush fabric and stretched out her back. "You know, Ben, I could use a break from sewing. Amèlie Fontaine lives just a few doors down from me, in that darling house with the green shutters. Shall we see if she's entertaining today?"

 

***

 

Sidonie Fontaine and her mother were both home, and both were delighted to see Dominique, considerably less delighted by January. However, Sidonie was more than happy to treat him to a blistering earful of Pierre-Michel's faults, which ranged from paying her inadequate attention to money mismanagement and, as Dominique had said, appalling manners, particularly (it was suggested) in the bedroom. January couldn't help noticing that the small matter of her own lover was never mentioned.

He also noticed a fading bruise just visible on Sidonie's cheek. A good deal of effort had been made to cover it up, successful on the whole, but it was more visible in the vicinity of her jawline, where it had gone to faint browns and yellows like a blemished fruit.

He relayed all of this to Shaw the next morning at the market, where the desk sergeant at the Cabildo had directed him. Having just broken up a fight between a group of stevedores on the docks (half of them hung over, the other half still drunk) the Lieutenant was leaning against a post and having a quick breakfast of fried callas eaten from a twist of greasy paper. He had the scraped-out look he usually wore around Carnival time, and January suspected he hadn't slept. 

"If I were going to guess," January said, "I'd say M'sieu Bajolière's inadequacies as a lover weren't the only reason why she ran around behind his back." In retrospect, whatever Livia's flaws, she hadn't placed Dominique with a man who beat her, and for that he was grateful.

"She seem like she's scared?" Shaw asked.

"Not at all. The opposite, rather." But January thought of Trinette Gresseau's daughters, both of whom were pretty, demure, and shy. If Sidonie had turned out to be a handful, with a fiery temper and a mother who appeared to be a formidable woman to cross, Emile Bajolière wasn't making the same mistake next time. He wanted his sons to have mistresses who wouldn't raise a fuss regardless of how they were treated. _Martine's not even out yet,_ Dominique had said. According to his sister, the girl was only fourteen.

"No chance your sister or that Sidonie gal can finagle either you or me an invite to the Bajolières, I don't reckon?"

"Not a chance," January said. "Sidonie's not speaking to them, and Dominique doesn't know them well enough. And I won't have her exposed to that much risk," he added firmly. Especially not with both sons on the cruise for placées. Social etiquette and self-preservation held most men back from bothering another man's mistress -- but there were always those men who would try, particularly a man who would strangle a seventeen-year-old girl or consider a contract with one who was fourteen.

"Well, if they lookin' to contract a new gal," Shaw mused, "odds are good they all gonna be at that Blue Ribbon Ball two nights from now. You an' Sefton are playin' the affair, I hear."

January nodded. "I can keep an eye on them. It's not the best position for overhearing anything, but I can at least see if one of the Bajolière boys has a scratched face." He could have laughed with bleak humor at the sense of déjà vu -- the echo of another Blue Ribbon Ball years ago, and another suspect with a face clawed by a woman's nails. So much water under the bridge since then; so many things that had changed -- for Shaw, for himself, for all of them.

"That'd be decent of you, Maestro. Appreciate it." Shaw drummed his sugar-encrusted fingers on the post he was leaning against. "I'd give a lot to be able to get in there. Scope 'em out afore they hightail it for the hills. Tell me somethin'. 'twixt you an' that sister o' your'n, you think there's some way you could get me a peep inside?"

January nearly laughed. "You want to sneak into the Blue Ribbon Ball?"

"All them folks gonna be in costume."

"Yes, but they all know who's who anyway." A stranger, no matter how dressed, would stand out instantly. Especially someone as distinctive as Shaw. January had a feeling Shaw had a good enough sense of the intricately connected nature of Creole society to know that. He was simply throwing out ideas.

But now that the idea had taken hold, he couldn't help thinking about it.

_If they leave town before Shaw can pin the murder on them, they're likely to get away with it._ The murdered prostitute would never know justice, and Martine and her sister would be at the mercy of a man who beat his last mistress and might have murdered another woman to hush up their affair. 

"I don't know if it's possible," January admitted. "But I'll see whether Dominique has any ideas."

 

***

 

Dominique, to January's dismay, was thrilled at being able to help, and insisted upon meeting with Shaw to discuss arrangements.

They met at _chez Janvier,_ since a meeting of this sort at Dominique's house was clearly as out of the question as it would be at Shaw's disreputable rooming house. The windows and doors were firmly closed to avoid all risk of curious onlookers, and Dominique arrived in a voluminous cloak, as if she didn't come to visit her brother and sister-in-law three days a week in the normal course of events anyway. She was clearly delighted by the clandestine nature of the entire business. Shaw was already there, looking distinctly ill at ease; social propriety being what it was, he hadn't often been inside January and Rose's house. 

January, for his part, was all too aware that just last week they'd had two runaways hidden in the secret room under the house. This week, God be thanked, the house was unoccupied by any except its legal residents.

Rose had joined them to be polite, but she was occupied with a book in the corner. Hannibal was perched on a settee, tuning his violin; he'd appeared earlier in the day as if the mere hint of some sort of interesting happening was enough to draw him. From the kitchen came the cheery sounds of Zizi-Marie and Gabriel playing with Baby John.

"It won't be easy," Dominique said, taking Shaw's measure with a gimlet eye, "but I don't see why we can't get you in somehow. You'll need a costume, of course, and we'll need to _explain_ you -- that's the part that's going to be hard."

"He's American," January said, reluctantly getting swept up in the planning. "He could pose as a newly rich planter, just come in from out of town."

Dominique gave a squeal of laughter. "And who'll talk to him then, p'tit? Not the Bajolières, surely."

She had a point, and January realized the problem was even more difficult than it had first appeared. Shaw's accent was going to give him away as American no matter how they dressed him. The social division between Creole and American was no longer the impenetrable wall that it had been when January had first come back to the city -- standards had relaxed noticeably in the last few years; some of the mothers of unplaced placées were even arranging contracts with Americans these days -- but Shaw would still be at a significant disadvantage if he was trying to get information out of them. 

"I wonder if we can pass you off as a coattail relation of Henri's family," Dominique mused. "Henri can vouch for him, I'll see to it."

"It'll only last until he opens his mouth," murmured Hannibal.

"Sefton ain't wrong," Shaw said, raising one rawboned shoulder in a shrug.

But Dominique was giving him a speculative look. "I've heard Hannibal do an American accent. It's quite good. Can you sound like a French Creole, do you suppose, just for an evening?"

There was a faint choking sound from Rose's corner, but when January looked around at her, she was to all appearances consumed in her book, with a perfectly straight face.

"I ain't much in the declamatory way, Miss Janvier."

"Oh come now, people do it all the time. I've heard women switch from gutter patois to the finest Parisian French in the time it took them to lift their skirts across the doorstep. The first thing you need to do is tighten up your vowels ..."

Some ten minutes of diction lessons later, it was fast becoming obvious that whatever Shaw's various talents, he was correct that being able to fake an accent wasn't one of them. Hannibal had gone off to the kitchen under the pretense of seeing how Olympe's children were getting along with dinner preparations, although January was well aware that it was mainly to avoid disrupting the proceedings by falling off the back of the settee laughing.

"There's no help for it," Dominique sighed. "We'll have to pretend he can't speak."

Rose looked up from her book. "Tell them he was struck in the head."

Her sister-in-law gave her a puzzled frown. "What?"

"There was a man on the plantation where I grew up who was kicked in the head by a mule," Rose explained. "He was never quite right after that. He wasn't physically infirm, but he was slow to answer questions, and sometimes the words came out wrong."

Dominique folded her arms. "Unless a blow to the head can cause a man to lose the inflections he grew up with and substitute the accents of an entirely different man, I do not think that will help."

"There have been several interesting cases in the scientific literature ..." Rose mused.

"Might be for the best, all in all," Shaw said philosophically. "Folks do run at the mouth around them what can't talk back. Don't suppose I need to tell you that, anyways ... but this could be one o' them blessings in disguise or suchlike."

"If you're there to interview the Bajolières, you won't be able to do much of that if you can't talk to them," January said.

"Don't have to, necessarily. I can do with clapping eyeballs on 'em, check for marks, an' listen in a bit."

The reminder of possible scratch marks, left by a young woman in the throes of a strangling, was like a bucket of cold water dumped over January. Dominique shouldn't be anywhere near this mess. It appeared to be much too late to keep her out, however. She'd borrowed the measuring tape from Rose's sewing basket and was taking Shaw's measurements, while Shaw stood in mild bemusement and tried not to move too much. 

"We can use Henri's costume from last year, if it hasn't been made over into something else, which I doubt it has. He was Leatherstocking. It should suit you, and I doubt anyone will notice the similarities once it's been cut down for you ..."

It was going to take a lot of cutting down in certain areas, January reflected, and scaling up in others. It was hard to imagine two men who were less of a size than Abishag Shaw and Henri Viellard.

"And a bath," Dominique declared. "You _will_ have a bath, m'cher, and I shall bring the costume."

"I hope it includes a large mask," January murmured. Between Shaw's height and distinctive appearance, the odds that he wasn't going to be instantly recognized by half the people in the room seemed slim, but it was plainly a risk he was willing to take.

The conspirators' meeting broke up on that note. January walked Dominique home, wending along the outskirts of the Carnival crowd as it geared up for the evening. 

"I don't want to involve you in anything dangerous," he said quietly. "Promise me you'll stay away from the Bajolières at the ball. No unwarranted heroics."

"Don't be absurd, _mon petit cher_. At the first whiff of danger I will scurry like a frightened quail to Henri's protective bosom," Dominique promised.

Somehow he detected the faintest hint of sarcasm, but as promises went, it was better than nothing.

When he emerged from the rear entrance of Dominique's house, he found Shaw waiting for him, a blade-thin shadow in the winter dusk, like an island of silence amid the Carnival hubbub. January hadn't noticed him shadowing them to Dominique's, but here he was, and they fell into step easily.

Technically it was after curfew, but no one paid much attention at this time of year. Still, in these hard times it was safer -- much as January disliked the thought -- if one were to walk around at night, to do so in white company. Not that it would have stopped him, otherwise ... but he wondered if Shaw had been thinking of that.

And it did put him in mind of that _other_ Carnival season, so long ago that it seemed a different world to him now, and himself a different man. That other Carnival, when he and Shaw had met for the first time.

"A strangled girl," January murmured, as they walked back to Rue Esplanade in the lowering darkness. "A Blue Ribbon Ball ... and a man with a marked face."

"Except this one ain't got the sense to send his boy out of town for the season," Shaw remarked. "What's that they say, about history repeatin' itself?"

"As long as this one doesn't end in a gunfight involving my sister."

Shaw's mouth quirked at the corner. "I'll try to keep the gunfightin' out of it if you'll contrive to avoid stealin' anything or breakin' more'n a law or three."

 

***

 

The day of the ball dawned gray and wet. Dominique arrived around noon with a heavy bundle in her arms, raindrops glistening on its waxed canvas wrappings. She was accompanied by Hannibal and, most unexpectedly, Babette Metoyer, helping with unusual willingness to carry the unwieldy parts of the costume. "Oh no, I can't stay," the youngest of the Metoyer sisters told Rose, when coffee and cakes were offered. "I must help Virginie with her Lachesis before tonight ... well, if you insist, perhaps just one ..."

January managed to corner Dominique in the parlor as she laid out pieces of the Leatherstocking costume, most of them dyed colors that would never have blended into any forest January had seen. "The Metoyers, of all people? What were you thinking, involving _them_ in this?"

"Well, I couldn't do all the sewing myself, p'tit, not that and finish my own costume as well," Dominique said in reasonable tones. "But I should tell you, I've had the most marvelous idea --"

"Minou," January interrupted, a horrifying suspicion dawning on him. The Metoyer sisters were regular visitors to the house of the Widow Levesque ... "Does my mother know about this?"

"You needn't sound so scandalized. There's no way Maman wasn't going to guess ..."

January closed his eyes briefly in despair. If the Metoyers knew, and Livia knew ... half the demimonde would know by sunset. 

"The situation is not as dire as it seems, _amicus meus,"_ Hannibal told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "The lovely Livia won't have half the fun spreading rumors _before_ the main event as she will claiming afterwards that she guessed immediately when no one else did, and woe betide Babette or her sisters if they jump ahead of Livia on the afternoon-tea grapevine. If I know your mother, she'll be able to parlay this into a nine days' wonder that'll keep her appointment card full through the last day of Lent."

"Does no one want to hear my idea?" Dominique demanded.

Hannibal swept her a courteous bow. "Beg pardon, gracious maiden. Pray continue."

"I have found the perfect ... what do they call it in novels? The perfect cover for the Lieutenant," Dominique said over her shoulder as she fussed with stripes of purple-dyed suede that would have given any self-respecting Leatherstocking apoplectic fits. "We'll pass him off as a Gascon."

"As a what?" Rose asked, coming into the parlor after seeing Babette off, or (more likely) pushing her out the door.

"Distant relatives of Henri's. The family moved up to Pointe Coupee ages ago," Dominique said dismissively past a needle clenched in her teeth. "And half of them went back to France when the Americans took over anyway. There's hardly any of them left now, and they never come to town for the season. They could easily have had a son, especially a dumb one, hiding away all this time. No one will think anything of it."

"Will Henri play along?" January asked.

"Of course he will," Dominique said, as if the idea of Henri _not_ going along with an idea of hers would be as much of a shock as the sun deciding to move backwards across the sky. In point of fact, the latter was probably more likely.

"More to the point," Rose put in, "do his sisters and mama know about it?"

"The Metoyers know," January said, "and Livia knows, so why _not_ the Viellards too. In fact, let's take out an advertisement in the _Bee_ while we're at it. Minou, have you thought about what you're going to tell people when they realize that you're perpetuating a hoax on them?" Which was probably going to happen sooner rather than later, but he didn't want to cast too many predictions of doom on the operation before they even got started.

"Why, that it was for a bet, of course." Dominique's eyes were wide and guileless.

The amazing thing was that it would probably work. Dominique still possessed that quality she'd had ever since she was a small girl that allowed her to wiggle deftly out of any hint of wrongdoing. Another placée might suffer damage to her reputation, but people would only laugh and say, "Oh, _Dominique_ ..."

Zizi-Marie poked her head into the parlor just then to let them know that Shaw had arrived. He came in sodden, trying hard (and unsuccessfully) not to drip on the floor. It was hard to say if he'd followed Dominique's instructions to bathe or was merely wet from the rain; his coat looked as disreputable as ever, but January thought the long hair straggling damply on his shoulders appeared a shade or two lighter than usual, as if it had managed to make some passing acquaintance with soap.

Dominique, in any case, was not impressed. "I also meant you should _shave,_ " was her tart remark, in which some hints of Livia could be heard. "I shouldn't have thought it needed to be spelled out."

"I'll fetch Ben's shaving things," Rose offered.

"And your _hands!_ No Creole gentleman would have hands that are black under the nails, even during the harvest season --"

The Kentuckian's gray eyes glimmered with wry amusement. At least he was taking the whole thing well, although he kept casting baffled looks at the suede Leatherstocking costume; however, he had the discretion not to say anything about it.

"It'll add an authentic Cooper-esque touch," January suggested.

Dominique threw her hands in the air. " _Bleu,_ must I do everything -- Rose, cherie, please fetch soap as well --"

"Before we get to the soap," January said, "there are a few key elements of the plan still to be determined, such as how we're going to sneak an alleged long-lost Viellard relative into the Théâtre without the cooperation of Henri's family. Will they give us away, if they learn of the deception?"

"No need to go in the front," Shaw pointed out. "It's the gents in Clan Bajolière I needs to see, and all of 'em will be on the Salle d'Orleans side of the ball sooner or later. So's if I slip in discreet-like --"

"I can get you in through the service door," Hannibal spoke up. "One of the waiters owes me a favor. I'll ask him to leave it open for you."

" _Magnifique!"_ Dominique exclaimed. "That's settled, then. If someone would be so kind as to hold this while I finish sewing -- oh, this strap simply will _not_ stay on --"

"And what are the chances someone may notice there was no Leatherstocking in plum and burgundy spotted elsewhere?" inquired Rose, ever practical.

"It might be prudent to have him put in an appearance in the coachyard before ducking off for the kitchens," Hannibal agreed. "That should be sufficient. If people compare notes afterwards, it hardly matters, as long as no one notices something amiss _before._ "

"Complicated business, all this sneakin' around in disguise," Shaw remarked with a side glance at January and Rose.

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Rose said. "Oh, the shaving tackle ..." She hurried off.

"And now," Dominique began, "on the matter of your hands --"

January and Hannibal traded a look, and as Rose returned to chaperone, they got out of the way, taking themselves down to the kitchen. Zizi-Marie was at the table, halfheartedly working on the lessons Rose had set her to -- she was being courted by a tailor of Paul Corbier's acquaintance, but Rose had firm ideas on education for women, and whether marriage for Zizi was near or far or never, as long as she was living under Rose's roof she had her studies in between her chores. Gabriel stirred a bubbling pot on the fire, while Baby John sprawled on the floor under Zizi's feet, pushing a toy cart back and forth in a studious way that suggested he was attempting to fathom its inner workings. Outside the open door, rain drummed softly in the yard, completing the peaceful domestic scene.

January had hoped to snatch a few hours' sleep this afternoon, but it was obvious that nothing of the sort was to be had, so he fetched his guitar while Hannibal opened his violin case.

"I can't decide whether this is going to be an unmitigated disaster or the most entertaining Blue Ribbon Ball this town has seen in years," Hannibal remarked, testing the tuning pegs on his violin.

"I don't see why those two things need to be mutually exclusive." January shook his head as he played a few test notes on the guitar. He hadn't had it out much lately, and the damp had played havoc with the strings. "They can't fail to recognize him, you know, no matter how many embellishments Minou buries him under."

"I don't know, the sheer implausibility of the costume alone ought to help. I doubt if most people in town have ever seen him in anything other than his Guard uniform. If anyone does recognize him in that delightful purple confection, they'll most likely think they're hallucinating. Besides," Hannibal added, settling himself near the fire with the freshly tuned fiddle, "a little mayhem at a Blue Ribbon Ball is a tradition. The public would be disappointed otherwise."

"I suppose I can't argue with that." January strummed a chord on the guitar. "Any requests?" he asked Gabriel and Zizi.

The music had its usual effect, soothing the winding knot of tension tangled in his stomach. By the time Rose came into the kitchen, eyes bright with suppressed laughter, he'd almost managed to relax.

"Would you care to come and see what Minou's done? I think you'll both be very impressed."

They followed Rose into the parlor, with Olympe's curious children trooping along behind, Gabriel carrying Baby John. Dominique was still fussing with the costume, her voice carrying out to them -- "No, that strap is still too long. It's going to be loose on that side. Rose -- Rose, where did she go? These shears are hopeless for leather; I need a good knife --"

The difference was jarring enough to startle. January wasn't entirely sure if he would have recognized Shaw if he'd passed him on the street, and he knew the man, had known him for years now, under all the circumstances one man could know another. He had traveled with Shaw for months through rough country; had saved his life; had seen him grieving and angry, tired and sick.

And Minou had somehow managed to turn him into a near stranger.

The Leatherstocking costume suited him, in a way it hadn't suited Henri. Even the absurd colors were flattering, at least inasmuch as January could judge that sort of thing. He didn't know how, but in the face of all odds and all his past history with the man, Shaw -- at least in Dominique's hands -- managed to make the costume look stylish.

January had never realized that Shaw's hair, left to its own devices, was curly. Or possibly that was something Dominique had done to it. It definitely looked a few shades lighter and redder than its usual ditchwater color.

Shaw glanced at the assembled observers in the doorway, with a wry "what can you do" sort of expression that made him look a little more like himself.

Finally getting the strap adjusted to her satisfaction, Dominique straightened and glanced around at the various stunned observers. Her smile was catlike, and not at all unlike her mother's.

"What do you say?" she asked them. "I should think he'll be the hit of the season, no?"

"I'm impressed," January admitted.

"I think," Rose murmured, "that you lot might have some chance of pulling this off."

 

***

 

Since it wouldn't do for anyone to notice a purple Leatherstocking coming and going from the January residence, Shaw left in his usual clothes, with the bundled-up costume and extensive instructions from Dominique on properly donning it; she clearly felt that her reputation as a seamstress was at stake. Then she noticed the time with a little cry of dismay and dashed off to commence her own preparations.

January returned from walking her home with just enough time to eat something -- Hannibal joining them -- and then kissed Rose goodbye. 

"I'm devastated to miss this," Rose said impishly. "Utterly distraught. You will have to give me a full account in the morning."

"With any luck the night will be completely unmemorable."

Rose's bark of laughter was not the most confidence-inspiring reaction.

 

***

 

Dominique showed up at the ball in the early wave of attendees for a change, shortly after the band set up. Compared to her usual habits, she must have set a record for speed and efficiency to get herself dressed in time, January mused. With colorful, wire-and-tulle wings spread out to an extent that posed a danger to nearby dancers every time she turned around, the butterfly was hovering attentively near Henri, who January was amused to note had chosen to attend as a naturalist, in explorers' garb (or a well-pressed and scrupulously neat facsimile of it) and complete with a magnifying lens, logbook, and, of course, a butterfly net. He wondered if it had been Chloe's idea or Dominique's. In any case, he made a mental note to tell Rose about it.

Charmian was nowhere in sight, to January's relief. Normally Dominique took advantage of every opportunity to offer her friends and peers a chance to coo over her daughter, but apparently she'd decided that having Charmian in proximity to a murder investigation would be too risky.

_Small favors, anyway ..._

Hannibal, who knew almost everyone in town to one degree or another, pointed out the Bajolières to January. The two sons were clad, respectively, as a pirate in scarlet silks and a Roman senator wearing a laurel-leaf crown and a trailing robe. Bajolière Père was not in costume, although his silk coat would have been vulgarly ostentatious in a more ordinary context.

Both the sons were masked, and January had yet to view either of them from an angle that allowed him to see what little of their faces were visible. They were often to be seen in the company of a tall Marie Antoinette and a slim and delicate Guinevere in a trailing skirt, who must be Trinette Gresseau and her elder daughter. 

However, January noticed other mothers jockeying for a position near Emile Bajolière as he circulated with his sons close by. As Dominique had mentioned on more than one occasion, it was difficult for courtesans in the colored demimonde to find placement with the economy as it was. The news that the Bajolières were in search of not just one but two placées must have sent ripples through the gossip channels of the "back of town."

And how many of those attentive mamas would pull their daughters out of the running if they learned what had happened to the last girl who got herself involved with a Bajolière? Some would, January was sure. And he was just as sure that others would not; there were certain to be those who considered the risk, while regrettable, well worth the reward. _Pity about that girl, cherie, but think of the advantages -- and you'll hardly ever see him as it is --_

Life was full of risk, after all.

"And there is our Leatherstocking," Hannibal murmured over the delicate strains of a waltz, never pausing the movement of his violin bow.

January didn't know how someone as tall as Shaw and dressed mainly in purple could manage to appear in the middle of a group of people with the same stealth that he might have used to emerge from a heavily wooded riverbank, but somehow he did it. In between two of January's glances at the crowd, he'd materialized near the passageway to the Théâtre next door, where the white families of the placées' protectors were entertaining themselves in the absence of their husbands and fiancés.

The Leatherstocking costume, January could not help noticing, had an axe that definitely wasn't paper maché shoved through its belt. He supposed taking a Kentucky long rifle into the ballroom, costume or no, would have been over the line. This must be the next best thing.

Dominique instantly angled toward Shaw, popping up at his elbow and taking him in hand to introduce him around the room. She guided him with a sort of proprietary pride, generally circulating in the vicinity of the buffet, where the crowds were thickest and the Bajolières had been making periodic trips. Ben clenched his jaw as his fingers danced on the keys, the movements so automatic by now that he hardly had to think about it. _This isn't what I call staying away from the Bajolières, Minou!_

But as far as he could tell by the reactions to Dominique's introductions, no one appeared to be the wiser to Shaw's true identity. There were no gasps of dismay or ripples of gossip spreading in Shaw's wake. Which was not to say there were no gasps and no gossip, but it had a very different tone from January's expectations.

It was, in fact, quickly becoming obvious that Shaw was turning female heads all over the room.

Did none of those people down there see the way that Shaw stood out in this place of music, dance, and leisure -- the air of danger, the lupine grace to the way he moved? Apparently not. January wondered if it stood out so clearly to him because he knew who Shaw really was; would he even have noticed if he didn't? He suspected that he still would have. To him, it seemed too obvious not to see. But then, January too had survived in a world that must be indescribably alien to most of the other patrons of the ball, whose closest contact with danger came in the form of duels, with their violence prescribed and limited. People who knew what it was to fight for their lives in a no-holds-barred scrap -- to be pursued -- to be hunted and frightened, and to turn the tables and become the hunter in turn -- recognized others who had done the same.

It made January think of a wolf moving among sheep.

But maybe they _did_ notice, and just didn't know what they were looking at. January suspected that the sureness in the way Shaw moved, the palpable competence and the sense of danger lurking just below the surface, had something to do with the way that half the women in the room seemed to be gravitating toward him.

Or maybe it was the fact that he didn't speak, rendering him mysterious and unusual.

Livia, in Renaissance garb and looking somewhere between deeply pained and outright horrified, was doing her best to avoid Shaw and his knot of admiring ladies, and kept shooting daggerlike looks at her favorite daughter. Dominique appeared to be having the time of her life, delighting in her role as mediator between "M'sieu Gascon" and the rest of the room.

"You know, _amicus meus,"_ Hannibal remarked softly, "if any of these well-bred ladies realize they're throwing their daughters at a Kaintuck policeman, there's going to be a riot."

"One crisis at a time, shall we?"

Hannibal's incredulous gaze was still following Shaw around the room. 

"Stop staring," January muttered. "You'll give him away."

"I can't help it. Pygmalion and Galatea come to mind."

"Since my sister is the Pygmalion in that story, I'd really prefer not."

" _What is life but a series of inspired follies?_ " Hannibal quoted, finishing the waltz with a liquid riffle of notes on his violin.

The musicians took a break, and January shared a glance with Hannibal. "If I'm not back before the next set begins --"

"... We'll choose something sans piano part. Fortune favor your venture, or at least favor unlucky bystanders from being shot at." Hannibal saluted with his violin bow as January dropped from the musicians' dais to the dance floor.

He maneuvered through the crowd as inconspicuously as he could manage given his height and color. Dominique and Shaw were at the buffet again, as were the Bajolières -- all three of them sticking close together, as they had been all night. Shaw and Dominique had been waylaid by yet another group of intrigued young women, one carrying a baby dressed as Harlequin to her Columbine. 

"But doesn't he talk at all?" January heard the Columbine ask as he got close enough to eavesdrop.

"He has a profound stutter and prefers not to," Dominique explained. 

Shaw swept the Columbine a polite bow that was brief but not badly executed. She hid a giggle behind her fan, which was indecorously painted with emblems of playing-card suits.

_How do they not see it?_ January marveled as Shaw straightened up, his calm, alert gaze behind the purple mask sweeping across the Bajolières and pausing ever so briefly when he caught sight of January, before sliding back to Emile Bajolière and his sons. Shaw looked at ease, despite the unfamiliar milieu -- but then, January thought, Abishag Shaw was a man who'd spent most of his adult life in places where he didn't quite fit. He blended better at the moment than he did in most of the situations where he usually found himself, even if it was a facade -- and even if, to January, the cool woodsman's watchfulness in his level gaze gave him away.

January himself was more conspicuous at the moment, loitering with no obvious reason to be near the buffet. He turned and began to fuss with a floral arrangement decorating the ballroom, trying to look busy. There were times when it could be to his advantage that anyone seeing a well-dressed black man would automatically see a servant, he thought grimly: busy servants were largely invisible. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the byplay at the buffet.

He could never be sure if Dominique had intended a meeting with the Bajolières or if she was merely trying to work closer to them, but as she delicately sidestepped the Columbine and friends, Emile Bajolière happened to straighten and turn away from the buffet with a glass of wine in hand, bringing him abruptly face to face with Dominique and Shaw.

January flinched, knocking an orchid to the floor.

"M'sieu Bajolière." Dominique curtsied demurely.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure." Bajolière's gaze ran over her in a way that made January's skin crawl. It was far closer to the look of a man assessing a slave on the auction block than contemplating a girl as a suitable match for his sons.

But a placée could never wed her protector, and what was plaçage but a business transaction, in the end? The man had come here to buy, and for him, all the women at the ball may as well have stood at auction for his sons' pleasure.

Dominique cast a glance at Henri, at the other end of the buffet, to make sure he wasn't watching before she playfully swiped at Bajolière's arm with her fan. "I shan't waste your time, M'sieu; I spy my protector down there among the shrimp canapes. Abelard --" This to Shaw. "-- will you be well for a moment if I go make sure Henri is not growing bored? A cousin of my protector -- Abelard doesn't speak, you see," she explained to Bajolière. "A childhood impediment ..." She gave a quick flutter of her fingers near her temple. "Oh no, I think Henri's calling me -- you'll be all right, won't you, cher?" she added quickly, patting Shaw's arm, and scurried off in a flutter of skirts and butterfly wings toward an oblivious Henri.

January wasn't sure why it surprised him that she was good at this. Dominique had grown up in the world of the demimonde, where games of petty intrigue were played as naturally as breathing.

Bajolière turned away from Shaw after a cursory glance, assessing and dismissing him. Shaw casually drifted to the buffet and picked up a morsel, which he turned over in his long fingers as he tilted his head slightly. His pale wolf's eyes, behind the mask, followed the Bajolière brothers.

And, as the red-clad pirate lifted his garish red mask to bite into a cheese confection, January realized what Shaw was up to, and why he and Dominique had been sticking close to the buffet ... for anyone wearing masks that covered the face as completely as the Bajolières' would have to lift them in order to eat.

The pirate turned his head, and for an instant January glimpsed, as Shaw surely must have, the fading parallel stripes across his pale cheek beneath the half-raised mask, where desperately clawing fingernails had found their mark.

Dropping the canape on the edge of the table, Shaw moved smoothly forward, gliding into the younger Bajolière's personal space. January abandoned the floral arrangement and moved closer as well, just in time to hear Shaw's quiet voice, in accents that were unmistakably not those of a Creole planter: "Philippe Bajolière, a moment o' your time, if'n I might?"

Bajolière's head snapped up, and January could see the instant when realization hit him like a brick between the eyes, and his look of confusion changed to horror. If Shaw had been asking questions around the Bajolière house, they surely knew what he looked like -- and any disguise, at close range, was only so effective.

"No need to make a big hoo-rah about it," Shaw murmured. "If'n you wants to go quiet-like, none o' these folks gonna be the wiser --"

Philippe snatched up a tray of cheese puffs and swung it at the policeman's head. Shaw ducked easily, but the laurel-crowned Roman -- who must be Pierre-Michel -- hurled the contents of a bucket of ice and open champagne bottles at him from behind. The mess went everywhere -- some on Shaw, some on Bajolière Père, some on startled spectators.

Philippe took advantage of the distraction to dash for the exit, shoving members of the crowd out of his way. Angry muttering and female cries of annoyance trailed in his wake. Pierre-Michel backed away and took off running in a different direction, ignoring his father bellowing furiously after him.

"So much for quiet-like," Shaw muttered, swiping champagne-wet hair out of his eyes. He turned; his gaze caught January's. "Looks like Philippe's goin' for the Théâtre an' t'other un's headed out back."

"I'll get the back," January said, and sprinted in that direction. 

A fresh chorus of screams behind him made him take a quick glance over his shoulder to see what Philippe had done now. It turned out that it wasn't Philippe who was the cause this time, but Shaw. Having discovered that the axe in his belt hampered his ability to run, he'd drawn it. This not only made running easier but opened a path in front of him as the placées and their protectors threw themselves out of the way with shrieks of horror. Dominique, well out of the line of fire -- or axe murder -- was clinging securely to Henri's arm while watching with the unbridled delight of a spectator at a back-alley cockfight.

A waiter pointed January not out to the coachyard, as he'd expected, but upstairs. January pounded up the stairs, past a startled couple peeking out of an alcove, the woman with her dress pushed down to expose bare light-brown shoulders amid a welter of feathers. The sound of running feet echoed from the gallery above.

January knew that his options were limited. In a venue this crowded, he couldn't strike Pierre-Michel or threaten him with a weapon. At most he could tell Shaw which way the fleeing suspect had gone. Still, it was better than nothing --

He stumbled out onto the poorly lit gallery above the ballroom. There was no movement, no running feet, and he thought he might have lost Pierre-Michel already. Had he ducked through one of the doors leading off the gallery? They were all dead ends as far as January remembered, but there were many places to hide in a building this size.

He looked over the railing, down at the kaleidoscope of costumes and shoving, confused people on the ballroom floor. Several of the braver spectators had intervened to stop the fleeing Philippe, forcing him down to the floor as Shaw closed in.

Hannibal caught January's attention, waving at him and then pointing along the gallery.

Half hidden behind a support post, his Roman robe surprisingly difficult to see in the shadows, Pierre-Michel was leaning over the railing as well. From somewhere in his robes, he'd produced a dueling pistol. Steadying it on the railing, he aimed at Shaw's back.

At this distance he'd have to be a damn good shot to hit his target, but in a room so crowded, the odds were good that he was going to hit _somebody._ January was too far away to reach him before he could fire, but there was a table at the top of the stairs with a brace of unlit candles in a heavy iron holder shaped like twisting vines. January gripped it, and hurled it down the gallery with all the force he could muster. 

It had been a long time since he'd given his throwing arm a workout, but behind him lay a boyhood of hunting rats and birds in the edge of the cane fields with flung sticks and rocks, and his aim was still good. The candelabra struck Bajolière's arm a numbing blow, kicking the gun to the side. It discharged harmlessly into the far wall. 

A limited sort of panic broke out below. The rising babble of voices was loud enough that only a few of the patrons at the ball seemed to have recognized that a gunshot had occurred. Shaw definitely did; he flinched and crouched, looking up.

The pistol fell from Bajolière's numb fingers, and he wheeled and fled down the gallery. There was a back stair, January recalled. Apparently Bajolière knew it as well. January chased him down into a storeroom of some kind, then out into the stableyard. 

With his injured arm pressed to his chest, Bajolière wove between carriages and startled grooms and drivers. January's longer legs gave him an advantage, but Bajolière had the speed of desperation. He was going to make it out to the street, where he could vanish into the Carnival crowd -- 

And then a figure stepped into Bajolière's path, and a resounding thud echoed back to January. Bajolière's legs shot out from under him and he went down hard on the cobblestones.

One of the stableboys had clubbed him in the face with a feed bucket.

"Thank you --" January began, as he came panting to a halt, and then the stableboy tipped back his head, and amid the alternately concealing and revealing shadows of the yard's flickering torchlight, January saw the face under the brim of the hat. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or curse.

"What happened to waiting to hear all about it tomorrow?"

"I couldn't wait," Rose said serenely. "Baby John is safe with Zizi and Gabriel, don't worry."

"That ... wasn't my biggest worry."

January recognized the shirt she was wearing as an old one of his, with a piece of rope as a belt to secure it around her much narrower waist. The slightly too-small trousers were Gabriel's. That noisome hat with its crushed crown, on the other hand ... he didn't even want to know where _that_ had come from.

"Are you all right?" Rose asked.

"I'm fine, and I'm glad you were here as always, light of my life -- now get out of here before someone sees you!" Rose being recognized snooping about the Blue Ribbon Ball dressed as a boy would be the perfect _coup de grâce_ to an evening that would surely have the city's gossipmongers talking for weeks.

Rose made an aborted move forward, as if she'd started to kiss him and caught herself just in time. Contenting herself with a wink, she darted off into the shadows.

Shaw arrived a moment later. His lack of questions about either the abruptly vanishing stableboy or the unconscious Bajolière at January's feet left the distinct impression that he knew exactly who that boy had been. January could only hope she wasn't that easy for everyone else to recognize.

"Where's Philippe?" January asked, helping Shaw drag Pierre-Michel into the stables, where Shaw tied him up with a piece of rope liberated from a stanchion.

"Got the maître-de an' half a dozen volunteers guardin' 'im. When I left, Bajolière Père was tryin' to throw bribes around, but there's enough folks to keep each other honest, or at least fightin' over who gets the pay-off, 'til the Guard can get here." He glanced up. "You keep lookout for a minute, I got a shirt an' things stashed back here. Slipped a sou to one o' the grooms to let me use a stall. Just gotta get changed."

"Hurry," January said, as Shaw vanished into one of the stalls. "If I get back inside quickly, I'll be back in the band before the next set begins, and I doubt if anyone will notice I was gone."

The transformation was effected before Pierre-Michel began to stir and groan. Shaw slipped from the stall in his dingy coat that faded into the shadows as one couldn't quite do in purple suede, a hat clapped over his extraordinarily curly hair.

"You may have created the mystery of the social season," January told him. "Who _was_ that masked man in purple?"

Shaw's grunt was unimpressed. "Any o' them folks wants to try helpin' me break up a tavern fight down on the wharves, then I'll be sure an' take they's opinions into account. You best be gettin' back to your music."

January nodded and turned to go.

"Oh, an' Ben?" When January looked back, Shaw flashed him a smile, there and gone in the shadows. "Thanks for the save, back there."

"You've done the same for me."

Back inside, shaking off the chill of the winter evening and the fading energy rush from the fight, he paused to brush himself down and straighten his dark coat, before walking into the ballroom as calmly as possible. He might as well not have bothered; a babble of voices hit him as he walked in, the entire room awash in speculative gossip. He could probably have marched through the room covered in mud and no one would have paid attention.

There was no sign of Philippe, or his father either. January assumed the murder suspect had been hustled to some discreet location, an office or storeroom, rather than left in the middle of the ballroom for all to stare at. He wove his way through knots of gossiping placées and agitated parents, to jump up onto the musicians' dais where the band was playing a somewhat disorderly cotillion that no one was paying attention to.

Slipping by Hannibal en route to the piano, January murmured, "Did you know Rose was going to be here?"

"I was sworn to secrecy. And, _amicus meus_ , believe me when I say that I'd rather argue with you than her any day."

 

***

 

"So it was Philippe who was seeing the girl and strangled her," said January to Shaw, two days later. "Were the others involved at all?"

It was the first time he'd been able to catch up and ask how things had turned out. Shaw was in his shirtsleeves, sitting on the steps of the rooming house where he'd found new lodging after returning to town from the search for his brother's killer. This time it was January's turn to lean against a post -- stopping to chat, but not sitting down. With Carnival season drawing to a close, the city had a sordid morning-after feeling today, strewn with trash from the nighttime festivities. A half-drunk woman weaved her way down the street, picking up rags and adding them to a bundle she dragged behind her through the mud, while humming quietly to herself.

"Now that's a question don't have an easy answer." Shaw peeled quarters from an orange and ate them as he talked. He was bareheaded in the chill morning sun, his hair still unusually curly from Dominique's ministrations -- and lighter-weight than usual, owing to the recent washing. Every passing breeze lifted it off his shoulders, and he kept batting at it idly, as if he wasn't used to having it floating up in his face. "Oh, them folks all knew about it, an' sure as spit Bajolière the Elder done his best to cover it up, but that's devilish hard to prove in a court o' law. Like as not Philippe's the only one goin' down, on account o' he's the only one we can prove did wrong -- well, 'ceptin' for his brother takin' a potshot at a sworn officer of the Watch, but we gon' let bygones be bygones on that if he agrees to testify."

So Pierre-Michel, who had beaten his first mistress, would still be free to seek another. January felt a muscle jump in his jaw, and told himself there was nothing he could do. 

Nothing, at least, except to drop a discreet word of gossip in Dominique's ear. Pierre-Michel Bajolière might have a good deal of trouble finding a woman willing to contract with him the next time he was in town.

... or maybe he wouldn't. Times were hard, after all. _One can't be choosy._ But at least, unlike Sidonie, or that poor girl from the Swamp, Pierre-Michel's new mistress would know what she was getting herself into. And, in their way, the placées, though their position was more perilous, had more recourse than a wife, who might end up bound to a husband she hated and imprisoned in his house. As Arnaud Trepagier had done to Madeleine, he thought, remembering that other Blue Ribbon Ball, years ago. The placées were free to walk away, at least as free as economic circumstance allowed.

"Much obliged for your sister's help," Shaw said, and January looked up, jerked out of his musings. "Tell 'er that." He smiled briefly. "She get in trouble for it?"

"Anything but," January said with a grin. "She's the belle of my mother's social circle right now. Livia is extremely put out at being upstaged."

"An' we got off with only one gunshot."

"Better than last time," January agreed. 

"Didn't hit nobody neither. Maybe a record for one o' them balls."

"Actually, from what I hear, there were fewer duels than usual, and almost no fisticuffs. Everyone was too busy talking about the main excitement to pay attention to their usual feuds."

"Providin' a public service, we was."

"Indeed."

And for a moment they merely grinned at each other in the thin winter sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> So the prompt was: _Maybe Shaw has to go undercover as A Clean Person (it's the perfect disguise; no one would ever suspect it was him) and everyone is surprised by how attractive he is, a la that scene in a movie when the girl takes her glasses off. I feel like Dominique is involved in making this happen somehow, because as we all know, Dominique has Powers when it comes to getting people to do what she wants._ I hope I did justice to it!


End file.
